Racquets by brands

Usually players stick to one or two brands during the entire career. There were players who used three brands though (e.g. Jimmy Connors, Andre Agassi), but I found only two players to change the mark four times: Henri Leconte and Greg Rusedski. In Rusedski’s case it’s quite understandable taking into account his roots 😉 Greg was born in Canada to English mother and German father (of Polish–Ukrainian descent), at the age of 22 he adopted British citizenship and played for Britain since 1995. Rusedski possessing strong mixture in his genes began the career with Prince, in 1996 replaced it by Wilson, three years later by Donnay, in the last two seasons of his career was using Dunlop. Connors is an example that as long career lasts everything is possible, the former No. 1 after 17 years of playing Wilson  (two different models) decided to replace his elongated “steel Wilson arm” by a graphite Slazenger, he made his famous US Open run in 1991 playing Estusa. Sometimes it happens that players come back to their initial brands, Novak Djokovic and Marat Safin are examples of it, they came back to Head after short romances with Wilson and Dunlop respectively. Is there a relation between nationality or game-style and racquet brands? Rather not, albeit I noticed that the most popular Head  never attracted American and Australian players, in some sense it’s the brand destined for European players, Wilson in turn is strongly connected to offensive guys, quite often the most flair players, attached to marks: Stefan Edberg, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer played all the time with this equipment. Babolat, in the recent years the third most popular brand beside Head and Wilson was popularized by Carlos Moya – the Spaniard was the first player who advanced to a Grand Slam final wielding this racquet. Below you see a list of brands and notable players of the last 30 years (mainly the active ones), who use(d) particular racquets. In blue active players and their current brands.  The list is open, so feel free to suggest me other non-active players and racquets they used.

Adidas: Stefan Edberg, Ivan Lendl, Ilie Nastase, Raul Ramirez

Babolat: Igor Andreev, Karim Alami, Wayne Arthurs, Benjamin Becker, Julien Benneteau, Kenneth Carlsen, Juan Ignacio Chela, Alex Corretja, Nicolas Escude, Alejandro Falla, Fabio Fognini, Robby Ginepri, Santiago Giraldo, Fernando Gonzalez, Ryan Harrison, Luis Horna, Alberto Martin, Nicolas Massu, Carlos Moya, Rafael Nadal, Nicolas Lapentti, Ivan Ljubicic, Feliciano Lopez, Leander Paes, Albert Portas, Mariano Puerta, Andy Roddick, Sam Querrey, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Donnay: Andre Agassi, Vijay Amritraj, Jimmy Arias, James Blake, Bjorn Borg, Guy Forget, Guillermo Perez-Roldan, Greg Rusedski, Johan Kriek, Lukasz Kubot, Henri Leconte, Thierry Tulasne

Dunlop: Nicolas Almagro, Tomas Berdych, James Blake, Paolo Cane, Nikolay Davydenko, Scott Draper, Wayne Ferreira, Mardy Fish, Tommy Haas, Thomas Johansson, Ramesh Krishnan, John McEnroe, Jurgen Melzer, Cedric Pioline, Mark Philippoussis, Tommy Robredo, Greg Rusedski, Marat Safin, Sjeng Schalken, Fernando Verdasco

Estusa: Boris Becker, Jimmy Connors, John Fitzgerald

Fischer: Alex Antonitsch, Marcos Baghdatis, Christian Bergstrom, Albert Costa, Filip Dewulf, Dominik Hrbaty, Andrea Gaudenzi, Jan Gunnarsson, Magnus Gustafsson, Jakob Hlasek, Anders Jarryd, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Henri Leconte, Wally Masur, Andrei Medvedev, Andrei Pavel, Victor Pecci, Goran Prpic, Horst Skoff, Carl-Uwe Steeb, Michael Stich, Stan Smith, Bohdan Ulihrach, Fernando Vicente

Fox: Brad Gilbert

Head: Jose Acasuso, Andre Agassi, Kevin Anderson, Hicham Arazi, Alberto Berasategui, Tomas Berdych, Arnaud Boetsch, Agustin Calleri, Jeremy Chardy, Thierry Champion, Andrei Chesnokov, Marin Cilic, Francisco Clavet, Arnaud Clement, Kevin Curren, Novak Djokovic, Ivan Dodig, Richard Gasquet, Sebastien Grosjean, Robin Haase, Victor Hanescu, Thomas Enqvist, Younes El Aynaoui, Nicolas Escude, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Wojtek Fibak, Rod Frawley, Mark-Kevin Goellner, Ernests Gulbis, Tim Gullikson, Hernan Gumy, Tommy Haas, Goran Ivanisevic, Bernd Karbacher, Ivo Karlovic, Gustavo Kuerten, Mikhail Kukushkin, Henri Leconte, Ivan Ljubicic, Yen-Hsun Lu, Alberto Mancini, Paul-Henri Mathieu, Florian Mayer, Tim Mayotte, Jurgen Melzer, Gael Monfils, Andy Murray, Thomas Muster, Karel Novacek, Alex O’Brien, Mark Philippoussis, Cedric Pioline, Richey Reneberg, Marc Rosset, Marat Safin, Emilio Sanchez, Javier Sanchez, Fabrice Santoro, Rainer Schuettler, Andreas Seppi, Dudi Sela, Jan Siemerink, Gilles Simon, Robin Soderling,  Sergiy Stakhovsky, Jonathan Stark, Jason Stoltenberg, Franco Squillari, Ryan Sweeting, Bernard Tomic, Dmitry Tursunov, Mikhail Youzhny, Stanislas Wawrinka, David Wheaton, Guillermo Vilas, Adrian Voinea, Filippo Volandri, Mariano Zabaleta, Nenad Zimonjic

Kneissl: Kevin Curren, Heintz Gunthardt, Gilbert Schaller, Ivan Lendl, Jurgen Melzer, Thomas Muster, Karel Novacek, Jakob Hlasek

Lacoste: Guy Forget

Le Coq Sportif: Pat Dupre, Yannick Noah, Roscoe Tanner

Mizuno: Ivan Lendl

Pacific: Andrey Golubev, Potito Starace

Prince: Andre Agassi, Pablo Andujar, Paul Annacone, Wayne Arthurs, Jay Berger, Byron Black, the Bryan brothers, Darren Cahill, Kent Carlsson, Pat Cash, Michael Chang, Grant Connell, Guillermo Coria, Albert Costa, Nikolay Davydenko, David Ferrer, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Renzo Furlan, Jan-Michael Gambill, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Marcel Granollers, Jacco Eltingh, Thomas Enqvist, Lleyton Hewitt, Chip Hooper, John Isner, Martin Jaite, Nicklas Kulti, Chris Lewis, Xavier Malisse, Gene Mayer, Paul McNamee, Andrei Medvedev, Gael Monfils, Albert Montanes, David Nalbandian, Magnus Larsson, Mikael Pernfors, Cedric Pioline, Patrick Rafter, Tommy Robredo, Olivier Rochus, Greg Rusedski, Christian Ruud, Sam Querrey, Davide Sanguinetti, Vincent Spadea, Brett Steven, Viktor Troicki, Thierry Tulasne, Chris Woodruff

Pro Kennex: Kenneth Carlsen, Steve Denton, Peter Fleming, Paul Haarhuis, Amos Mansdorf, Robert Seguso, Andreas Seppi, Henrik Sundstrom, Brian Teacher

Puma: Boris Becker, John Fitzgerald, Slobodan Zivojinovic, Jakob Hlasek

Rossignol: Jos-Luis Clerc, Carlos Costa, Johan Kriek, Harold Solomon, Jonas Svensson, Mats Wilander, MaliVai Washington, Mark Woodforde

Slazenger: Bjorn Borg, Pat Cash, Jimmy Connors, Mardy Fish, Tim Henman, Manuel Orantes

Snauwaert: Miloslav Mecir, Mikael Pernfors, Jonas Svensson, Mark Woodforde

Tecnifibre: Marcos Baghdatis, Arnaud Clement, Sebastien Grosjean, Denis Istomin, Henri Leconte, Janko Tipsarevic, Fernando Verdasco, Kristof Vliegen

Yamaha: Ronald Agenor

Yonex: Mario Ancic, Sergi Bruguera, Pat Cash, Peter Fleming, Anders Gomez, Lleyton Hewitt, Joachim Johansson, Richard Krajicek, Aaron Krickstein, Johan Kriek, Karol Kucera, Shuzo Matsuoka, Juan Monaco, David Nalbandian, Marcelo Rios, Paradorn Srichaphan, Bernard Tomic, MaliVai Washington, Stanislas Wawrinka, Todd Woodbridge, Jaime Yzaga

Völkl: Sergi Bruguera, Kent Carlsson, Andrei Cherkasov, Andrei Chesnokov, Martin Damm, Taylor Dent, Petr Korda, Felix Mantilla, Jiri Novak, Radek Stepanek, Mikael Tillstrom, Alexander Volkov

Wip Prestige: Adriano Panatta

Wimbledon: Ken Flach, Joakim Nystrom, Mikael Pernfors 

Wilson: Jeremy Bates, Thomaz Bellucci, Mahesh Bhupathi, Jonas Bjorkman, Guillermo Canas, Arnaud Clement, Alex Corretja, Jim Courier, Steve Darcis, Taylor Dent, Juan Martin del Potro, Novak Djokovic, Alexandr Dolgopolov, Hendrik Dreekmann, Stefan Edberg, Roger Federer, Mardy Fish, Patrick Galbraith, Gaston Gaudio, Jim Grabb, Ernests Gulbis, Tim Henman, Nicolas Kiefer, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Stefan Koubek, Richard Krajicek, Aaron Krickstein, Igor Kunitsyn, Lukas Lacko, Magnus Larsson, Michael Llodra, Feliciano Lopez, Nicolas Mahut, Todd Martin, Paul-Henri Mathieu, Fernando Meligeni, Max Mirnyi, Gilles Muller, Daniel Nestor, Jarkko Nieminen, Kei Nishikori, Magnus Norman, Andrei Pavel, David Prinosil, Mel Purcell, Philipp Petzschner, Milos Raonic, Raul Ramirez, Greg Rusedski, Eliot Teltscher, Mikael Tillstrom, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Dmitry Tursunov, Daniel Vacek, Vladimir Voltchkov, Todd Woodbridge, Mark Woodforde

If you want to find more about tennis racquets check out this website
…and wikipedia